How do you gather fire wood in deep snow.

[Colliewobble]

A lot depends on location though; up in the dales, and I would think the North York Moors, there aren't that many trees about on the tops! It could well be a case of collecting bits of whatever you see during the day and hopefully by the time you need a fire, you'll at least have enough to make a cuppa...

[FishyFolk]

Strange...I've found that many dead-standing birches have very damp wood inside, especially in winter. The wood also seems to decay rapidly. Maybe it depends on the variety of birch and the thickness of the bark?
I've noticed it mostly with Sweet Birch (Betula lenta), which grows all over the hillsides here. Lovely tree, though - it has a wonderful wintergreen fragrance in the inner bark and twigs .

I have the same experience. Most of trhe time birch is prettry much useless here, unless you come across a fallen one that the moose has stripped of bark, then the parts that stay above ground tend to dry out instead of rot.

Finding dry wood to burn in the birch forrest here is quite a nightmare. It's easy to make fire, but to keep it burning is a different story.

People actuall tend to haul with them a few logs of properly logged and dried birch wood into the forrest when they make fire. Specially if the kids are coming with. The little ones will be expecting to barbecue hot togs, and if dad cant get the fire going because all the wood in the forrrest is rotten and soaked, that simply won't do!

Anyway, with us when we go as a family, each one of us carry one log in the back pack. Enough to get a good fire going, and hopefully we can get some branches dry enough to burn when that is gone